One time I was reading though old posts and came accross some "appreciating GR"-type comments. I wish I could find it again. In it, someone (it seems it might have been bobappleton) stated that the LCC expanded the number of avaliable chords by one-third, or something like that. I realize I'm being vague.

Anyway, it struck me that a good sort of dialogue in the Forum would be for enthusiasts to share insights and anecdotes about chords that the concept helped them discover, how they have used them, and maybe examples in recorded music of where structures have been used/exploited by musicians, which were not really available (or at least not obvious) before the LCC.

It's I guess about sharing what value each person has gained from the LCC. Have you gained actual SOUNDS that you didn't have in your repertoire before? Do you use the same sounds you used to, but now have a greater certainty about how you use them? Did your music completely change upon incorporating the concept, or did you just look at things differently?

Anyway, I think this would be interesting discussion, especially since in-depth theoretical exploration has been generally met with responses like "it's about the music, not the science". Let's share the MUSICAL benefits/advantages we have gained from the LCC.

For me, it got me looking at ways to organize what is treated by traditional music theory as just "exceptions to the norm". For example, before, I would have listened to Sting's "It's Probably Me", and thought, "cool, he's playing a chord that's not really a chord, and making it fit an otherwise normal song structure". Now I am at liberty to not only name the chord (m+7), but to examine where it fits in with the rest of the scale/structure. Although I personally am exploring analysis and experimentation with principles other than the ladder-of-fifths model, the LCC definitely got me started looking more confidently "under the hood".

If you have any "testimonial"-type stuff of your own to share, please do so.

Great post. I still consider myself to be "a beginner" as regards the LCC, but studying it has undoubtedly expanded and deepened my playing, listening, understanding, and appreciation.

One thing I explored with chords was to write out the entire Order of Tonal Gravity, apply corresponding chords to each interval, (say were in C, bII would be ~ Cmaj13/Db, IV~ C aux. dim. b13/ F, bVII ~ C aux. dim./ Bb etc.), and then play them from the most outgoing bII, to the I, or from the I to the most outgoing, and exploring various patterns inbetween. Playing with this really opened up my eyes and ears in regard to the potential for some really groovy chords. Like you mentioned about Sting and some of the chords in some songs, I was unearthing chords I would have never before imagined and also able to classify and conceptualize them. Anyway, this was one exercise the blew my mind and really makes me curious about the horizontal aspect of the LCC...

It's been a LONG time since I posted here, although I read the threads all of the time. I use to post like crazy in the old forum, just been short on time recently.

Here's the first tune I wrote using LCC inspired ideas. I started with a fairly basic sketch of chords and then found some "flaovrs" I liked and reharmed the whole thing, and ended up with something I NEVER would have created without the LCC.

I was on a kick with 13b9 chords at the time (II of Lyd Dim or II of Aux Dim) and after messing around with some voicings, I found that I really dug the sound of 13 chords with the b9 in the bass - which is why they're all over the place in this one lol

Thanks for this post Strachs. It was me who suggested that the LCC has increased our musical vocabulary by as much as one third. And you give me a chance to talk about it here on the LCC Forum (a place which is dear to my heart).

After reading and re-reading the LCC books from the white one with the red comb binding (1960's) to what we now call Volume 1 (2001) over and over again, talking with various musicians in workshops and online and then spending time with George and Alice in their home - when he told me he'd been able to reduce the concept to "a single note", I began to see that people approached this statement "the LCC has increased our musical vocabulary by (insert percentage here)" and then NOT make the statement - probably for very good reason.

In any case this seemed to me to leave the LCC as a scientific research paper without a thesis. And I took the leap on George's behalf and the statement became "the LCC has increased our musical vocabulary by as much as one third". My experiments with the LCC bear this out.

PS: Great to see you back here Nate. You made some amazing contributions in the past...

I once recorded an arrangement of "Summertime" and on it we used the augmented scale for the minor chords at some points. I had never thought of using a C auxiliary augmented scale for an a minor chord.

Hey Nate. I agree. Beautiful tune. Would you put it up on the "I have a concept" thread? Then maybe we could add ML's interpretation there as well.

Hope you guys like that thread. As I said over there, the idea of categories has been tossed around by a few of us - and this is a way of testing it. ML said something about coming to the Forum and first being aware of "the music". Your piece would be a nice addition to that.

b

PS: anyone else with concept-related performance, please post it in "I have a concept"